


until my hands recover from your skin

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Consensual Underage Sex, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth of the over-thought matter, much like the mystery they've found themselves mired in, is flitting just out of reach, and for once, twice--he's lost count when it comes to Yosuke--there's no quick and easy solution to the mess of the puzzle pieces falling around them or for the painful press of Souji's heart against his throat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. less ache than hum

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [heart on your sleeve, and your soul in your shoes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4470650) by [sinagtala (strikinglight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala). 



> “ So I will lie beside you here  
> unnamed  
> until my hands recover from your skin. ”  
> — John Burnside; _De Humani Corporis Fabrica_

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Souji isn't sure what to think of Yosuke. To be more specific, he's not sure what he should be thinking of and more often of late than not, he's thought of him. But partners don't kiss, do they?

Souji isn't sure what to think of Yosuke.

To be more specific, he's not sure what he should be thinking of and more often of late than not, he's thought of him. It comes unbidden. A moment here, turning a disk over in his hands and wondering what Yosuke would think of the tracks, an idle thought there, tucking itself neatly into the Junes-branded shopping basket beside the vegetables and meat for dinner. There are no shortage of thoughts in his mind regarding his classmate-turned-best friend and therein lies the problem.

Yosuke, to extent of his knowledge, has both feet firmly planted into platonic soil even as Souji finds the ebb and flow of his line of thinking drifting further away from thoughts that are definitely okay to have about one's best friend. For one, partners don't kiss-- _probably_ \--and he mentally chides himself for letting his gaze settle three seconds too long on Yosuke's lips.

But he is pouting rather magnificently, in Souji's defense. Not that it'll help much, set as he is on winning this particular clash of wills. Their battleground is the paper spread across the dinner table at the Dojima's, and the point of contention being the colour of the cat lovingly penciled by a wide-eyed Nanako.

"Grey tabby cats look manly and strong," argues Yosuke, ready to make his mark with the grey crayon until abruptly interrupted by a well-timed nudge of Souji's elbow into his side and the resulting yelp.

"He needs to be the prettiest cat," Souji continues on, plucking the crayon out of Yosuke's hand, "and also because calicos are good luck."

"It's a cat! And what does that have to do with anything?"

There can be nothing less than a perfect cat on Nanako's homework sheet if she's to be at the top of her class. But what _does_ luck have to do with anything beyond that? He considers the kickstart of his pulse at the split-second contact of their hands, turns over the warm press of Yosuke--knees hard and elbows digging awfully into his ribs--at his side before cranking out the answer.

"Big Bro, you're funny! You're fighting like Mom and Dad used to."

Nanako's statement--well-meaning but no less stunning in its simple truth because _really_ , are they disagreeing over crayoned cats?--smacks Souji from introspection as surely as if he'd run into a wall. Of cats, and the amusement in his younger cousin's giggle, he remains certain. Of all else, less so.

Startling to his feet with an urgency that surprises even himself, Souji smacks down the offending grey crayon down on the table with an unexpected amount of force. "We are not fighting."

"Okay then... How about a pink cat?"

Pink cats are ridiculous. But then again, there could be worse things. Such as purchasing an entirely new set of crayons to replace a single broken gray one, or diving back into a steamy bathhouse in search for a handful of coal.

It's ludicriously hot, even for a place that's supposed to run warm. Too hot even for short-sleeved polo shirts and v-necked tees. Chie ties her sweater at her waist, Yukiko fans herself discreetly and Yosuke tugs at the collar of his shirt listlessly. Elbow-deep in whatever ichor Shadows are made of, Souji looks up at just the right moment to catch him tilting his head back. Coincidentally or not, the breath stops short in his chest at that same unit of time while his heart--traitorous, fickle thing--lurches forward with a start.

There's a triangle of skin at the base of Yosuke's throat, clavicles bare where the high collar stops short before the v-necked cut of his shirt. A single glimpse of unmarked skin, brief before shoulders drop back down, and he would run a goddamned marathon to catch another. Oh, to set his mouth down on that treacherous territory, teeth grazing the bone as a litany of distinctly Yosuke-like sighs warm the shell of his ear, before the boy in question breaks in with a question.

"Hey, partner. Something on your mind?"

Souji yanks himself back by his blunt-cut bangs from his rapidly-escalating train of thought, dragging his gaze back down to his Shadow-grimy hands, willing his pulse back to something less than freight-train fast.

"N-no. Not in particular," he manages in what he hopes is a relatively even tone. He smiles back at Yosuke, deflecting the unpleasantly-warm thoughts mingling steam-like with the fog behind his glasses. "It's just a little warm in here. But it's not that bad."

If he says it enough, perhaps he can convince himself of it too. Personas still flick and flutter reassuringly through the forefront of his mind, but what if, what if. He's never had anything to hide before, and no reason to hide it. _Still doesn't, still won't._

But even if he's managed to convince himself, Nanako isn't so easily fooled.

There's no reason at all for Souji to smile when he wishes Yosuke good night, receiver cradled against his ear to catch the whisper through the phone line, but he finds himself doing so anyway. Whatever they were talking about--lunch, homework, Teddie's latest antics in the Hanamura household--becomes static noise at the next words out of Nanako's mouth.

"You love him," she says as if it's the simplest thing in the world, like adding one and one to make two on her homework sheets. "That's why you're always smiling when you get off the phone, Big Bro."

"Of course, he's my best friend," Souji says, schooling his expression back to neutral passivity. Families love each other, friends love each other, and he most definitely does not have a crush on his best friend. Except when he does.

If Nanako catches the mid-sentence fumble of the lie halfway out of his mouth, she graciously chooses to ignore it for a knowing nod. Even so, he shifts a little guiltily under her wide-eyed, well-meaning gaze until he excuses himself to the kitchen where tomorrow's lunch-- _Yosuke's favourite_ , he explains and Nanako nods knowingly once again, and says nothing--awaits preparation.

When Souji dreams that night, tucked into his futon, he's sitting cross-legged in his room with his friends. They're going to play a game, Chie says--in the same way she'd told them all to watch the Midnight Channel--that she learned from one American movie or another. There's a bottle on the floor-- _glass_ , she insists, _it has to be a glass bottle and don't ask why_ \--and it spins, spins, spins round and round until the mouth points to Yosuke and the tail-end at himself. He doesn't remember much beyond being pushed and pulled and tugged clumsily to their feet by the others, stumbling over each other towards his closet to do whatever-it-is that happens during the darkness in the movies.

For seven minutes or however long, until he wakes with his hands shaking and skin clammy, he remembers this: The line from shoulder to hip, from hip to pelvis, and pelvis to knee is remarkably long and lean. There are knees between thighs, hands pressed down touch after glancing touch, marking and erasing and apologizing. The shudder starts in his fingertips, spreads down his wrists and runs to curl white-hot between his shoulder-blades where wings would flex and curl if set free.

Souji still isn't sure what to think of Yosuke. But here, startled from sleep with less an ache than hum where his heart should be, he's pretty sure he's in love with him.


	2. workings of the heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's falling again, crashing head-first into the first name on his lips and the last to fade from his mind, and damn if it doesn't hurt any less than his bruise-marked bones did on the first day they met.

There's something about Souji.

Maybe it's the set of his shoulders, a surety and certainty that pours off him in waves. Here, in that straight back and sombre press of lips, is someone that knows exactly what he's doing. There's a sort of presence, an air that turns heads magnetic to the pull of his iron-bound core. Or it could very well be the piercing half-glare beneath his blunt-cut bangs, and honestly, nobody should look that good in what amounts to a tousled bowl cut. Yosuke might be getting ahead of himself here but whatever it is--confidence, togetherness, reliability, just plain good looks and he has to yank himself back before the list goes on into uncomfortably girlish lines of thinking--there's something about Souji Seta that sticks with you.

It's more than a little embarrassing to admit it, and it sounds incredibly stupid. Even in his head, where Chie would say only stupid thoughts reside, _idiot_. But that's just about the only explanation for why he has to drag his partner free from the people--men, women, children, cats, everybody in the sleepy town of Inaba, the world--that flock to him months after the passage of time should have worn thin the shiny newness of city-born transfer student.

He's jealous. That much, he knows for sure.

They should be the same but they aren't, and the part of him that doesn't rear its green-eyed gaze enviously at the ease at which Souji has slipped into Inaba is equal parts glad and conflicted. But this isn't a line of thought Yosuke should be pursuing about his best friend. Especially not mid-wrangle with the rain-slicked road and the precarious temperament of a bike that's seen better days, and if he gets too distracted he might crash head-first into something again.

And falling really hurts.

\--

Unfortunately, the brain has a way of dwelling on things that you'd rather have sunk six fathoms deep, dredging up particular moments better left by the wayside and moving circles around subjects that should kept from the mind. It's all fog and elephants in Yosuke's mind, and him trying his darnedest to dredge up the animal at the root of the problem while Souji mutters "white bears" from the corner of his mouth. Who needs to know about polar bears anyway?

Legs folded beneath him as he dives into a lunch thoughtfully free of fish and tofu, it goes a little something like this: The harder you try not to think about something--a polar bear, an elephant, the specific curvature of Souji's secret smile--the more you'll think about it.

There's nothing to it, really. Nor to the way his ears tune out the white noise of his blood rushing loud in his ears, and into the particular frequency of Souji's voice.

"You could try two upward cuts, like this," he suggests, sheathing his own weapon before moving to place his hands over Yosuke's where they're curled around the wrapped handles of his daggers. Admittedly, it's a pleasingly crisp, clean motion, like there's nothing to it when he gestures up with his friend's wrists, blades and all, and rotates their joined hands up to slice at the air.

Yosuke thinks he could recreate the move easily enough in battle, a cut followed by another, when he's not so distracted. Distractions are for falling and crashing and dropping, and the last thing he wants to do right now is send a knife through his foot

"Got it," he says, sliding his sunny signature grin back into place, and hopes, heartbeat in his throat, that nothing gives way as he pulls his hands back to his sides.

\--

Between summer classes and work, he's doing a good job at keeping Souji out of his head. Or so he thinks, gazing down at the soccer field with an expression six hundred and sixty-seven kilometres away, until Rise manages to sneak up behind him one afternoon when she breezes into their classroom after class lets out.

"Could you be any more obvious?" she remarks too loudly, and Yosuke has half a mind to clamp a hand over her mouth before the stragglers and relative strangers in the room come inquiring. She continues on, unimpeded by his indecision and armed with a clean towel and water bottle. "I'm feeling generous today. Take these to Senpai when practice lets out."

He doesn't thank her then, not even when Souji looks at him from sweat-dampened bangs and smiles, "That was perfect timing, thanks," with a breathlessness that sends the word perfect right to his groin. He definitely doesn't thank her when she takes it upon herself again to teach them all a few tricks of the flirtation trade.

"There's something you can do," Rise giggles, one finger at the corner of her lip-gloss-pink lips, "to ask for a kiss without actually having to ask 'em. Like in a club or something and they're far away, you make eye contact with them and move your eyes in triangle around their face."

"You really believe that shit?" Kanji says above the chorus of giggles that erupts.

But it's elephants and polar bears again, and before Yosuke even realizes what he's doing, his eyes do away with the first two points of the triangle--left eye, right eye--and zero in on Souji's mouth. It's Rise's knowing, sly gaze that he meets when he manages to slam down on the brakes of his imagination and reel himself back by the metaphorical balls before his best friend can look up and catch him red-faced in the act.

\--

It seems everyone but Souji seems to think there's something going on. Yosuke, for his part, isn't sure whether to be glad about it or not, especially when it's Chie of all people who comes to confront him about it.

"You should just tell him what's up," she says, swinging her feet up onto Yosuke's desk and he flinches reflexively, bruises from her kicks aching in memory. Lips pursed and one of his comic books in hand, she's infinitely more comfortable with this topic of conversation than he is. "Aren't you and Souji-kun best friends?"

Yosuke drops his head into his hands. "That's a huge part of the problem!"

Best friends. Partners. _Equals_ , knuckles sending stardust across his sunset eyes because damn it, a kiss with a fist is better than none and if he knows what's good for both of them, it's better if he just keeps his mouth shut for once. Maybe it's different for girls, for Yukiko and Chie and maybe even Rise. Maybe it's different because it's Souji.

There are things that just aren't done and words that just aren't said, but Yosuke's logic is lost on her because she insists between page-turns, _why does it have to be so complicated?_

Head against the back of his hands, he just sighs.

\--

It's more than a little embarrassing to admit it, but Souji's the only one who knows about the nightmares. About Saki-senpai, about the radio static growing loud in Yosuke's head, about the formless hands reaching and clawing and tearing something into nothing until he slams back into the dark familiarity of his bedroom.

He's falling again, crashing head-first into the first name on his lips and the last to fade from his mind, and damn if it doesn't hurt any less than his bruise-marked bones did on the first day they met. There is no sunshine in his ragged breaths, and the wheezing of his worst fears is devoid of stars but pressed to his ear is a lifeline pulling him to shore and safety.

"I'm here," Souji says, voice thick with sleep and Yosuke snaps magnetic to the familiarity of his presence through the phone line like his very existence depends upon it. It's unexpected but it's him, it's all him, and there's no looking back now.

He curls the particular frequency of Souji's voice into his blood stream, takes a shuddering breath and closes his eyes to wade after him to safer shores.

"I'm here, partner."


End file.
